Lap Bat
by CampionSayn
Summary: This is a theoretical missing scene "Batman and Robin Must Die!" with Joker being…somewhat sane. You know, even if Batman did wake up in his lap in a graveyard. Which he knows Doctor Hurt is buried in somewhere. One-shot, mention of spoilers.


Title: Lap Bat  
>Summary: This is a theoretical missing scene "Batman and Robin Must Die!" with Joker being…somewhat sane. You know, even if Batman did wake up in his lap in a graveyard. Which he knows Doctor Hurt is buried in somewhere. One-shot, mention of spoilers.<br>Warnings: Mentions and spoilers of "Batman and Robin Must Die". Slight slash.  
>Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Don't sue me.<br>Dedication: To **Esmeralda Smith**for chatting with me on the horrors of eating tofu cubes with soup or at all. This was an interesting challenge while writing with the flu, and considering my head felt like it was going to blow up the whole time, I'm a little proud of myself for even finishing this.

Please click the review button and raise your hand if you agree that "Batman and Robin Must Die" was the absolute bomb. Come on, Joker _killed_ someone for "killing" _Batman_ and fought crime on top of everything! How could someone not love him even a tiny bit after that?

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><p><em>-:-<br>When there's no __**Batman**__…The Gravediggin' clown gets to be the good guy.  
>Tell me, I said, "What could be funnier than that?"<br>-The Joker, Batman & Robin Must Die: Black Mass._

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><p>The gate swung open so quick that Bruce did not hear the clang of metal against the dark grey and rotted stones of the graveyard's closed in walls as he took a single step and thrust his fist into the grinning pale, chalk white clown's face. He felt the jaw give way—not break, though, strange though that was—but something unexpected came from the fall back.<p>

That was the last thing Bruce could remember as his consciousness flitted back into reality.

He had been knocked unconscious; that was obvious by the splitting pain in his neck. Nobody had gotten such a lucky shot it such a long time. To knock out Batman was rare enough, but to do it when he was pumping with adrenaline from fighting not only an army of crazed, Devil worshipping lunatics, but also Thomas "the Black Sheep, Doctor Hurt" Wayne should have been…impossible.

The pain in his head was expected on reentry from unconsciousness, but he couldn't understand why everything below his shoulders was feeling damp and wet, cold and uncomfortable, but above his shoulders was dry and soft and warm. His head was lying on something squishy and…moving.

Against his better instincts—perhaps the ones that had dulled incredibly ever since he had gotten stuck in time by some cosmic joke—his eyes opened quite wide and he was so very displeased to find himself not at all in the Batcave or Wayne Manor looking up at his sons, no Dick or Tim or (even, though dispassionately) Damian or Alfred (whom he had missed terribly more than anyone else in his life, ever). He was incredibly, terribly, tremendously shocked to find himself looking up into a face of white skin, green eyes like a pair of acid stained olives and a smile that had long given him nightmares made of red, red blood. But the smile wasn't quite like rectus at the moment, though and that is the only reason Batman does not react when a gloved hand raises above him.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Bruce doesn't respond beyond giving a heavy growl under his breath and with a bend of the knees and the forces of the push-pull system, finds himself standing back up, towering over Joker, still with two fingers raised like Love and Peace or Rabbit Ears.

"What are you doing, Joker?"

The response is so, so like Batman (Batman, Batman, the One and Only, real McCoy) that the clown un-bends his knees from their crossed position so he can lie back against the hallowed ground, splayed like a snow angel (devil) and barks a very short but somehow real and less terrifying laugh. It's breathless and Bruce hates himself a little for actually liking it—really, being gone away for so long makes for strange things to become a welcome choice.

"Oh, it is you!" Joker laughs heartily, as though he had been worried about something going wrong and then Bruce looks at him and then back into the bone yard, so many plots of those who had passed on dug into like a whole place that had been ransacked by moles or impregnated rabbits that so needed a place to stay had been about. Doctor Hurt was nowhere to be seen and he could see three shovels strewn out around the place like multiple people had been digging for weeks. He was too tired to just guess and suspect what was going on; Joker had probably killed the wretched bastard and Bruce/Batman was too tired to really give a damn.

"I was wondering where you'd gone off to," the Clown Prince continued, as though this was a conversation that was resuming after only a short absence of two people in a coffee shop when one had gone off to get a refill, the other had waited and then they were together again, chatting about a camping trip—and why was Bruce even thinking like that, "Truth be told, I was actually worried. Don't get me wrong, the new kid is fun, but we're too much alike. It wasn't any real fun with you gone on vacation."

"My replacement performed excellently," Bruce replied, indignant and totally feeling up the waves of a concussion, "Although, I was a little confused when I heard that you helped him and his Robin and tried to blow up their base at the same time. And the incident with various other things, but let's stick with this—did you kill Doctor Hurt?"

Joker scrunched up his face in disdain at the mention of the man who had gotten him so freaking pissed off over the last months. With all the games (that he had used to _like_) they'd played, he somehow became a little more…Batman didn't have a word for it. But he would remember to bring up the man again if he ever wanted to watch Joker deflate like he was at the moment. He wasn't frowning or smiling; he just bit his lip and sighed, all of his muscles and joints and such becoming like that trick in the Wizard of OZ when the Witch of the West melted. His clothes looked ridiculously baggy in the action he was performing.

"If I never hear that creep's name again, it will be too soon," Joker grumbled, stretching his arms over the earth and gripping at spare pieces of grass and gravel, like he was tying himself to the ground so he wouldn't be swept away the next time he took a breath, "But I will say that he was dealt with. Is that good enough for you, Pointy Ears?"

Batman heard the sirens in the distance. Though it was hard to believe that the police could spare the man power to come and pick up the clown, he supposed that it said something about Gordon having a handle on things.

"For now," Bruce nodded, sober but not solemn for the moment. He didn't want to say he was happy that the clown had probably—most likely—killed one of the Wayne family's most vile sons, but he would admit to himself that he was glad to most likely be rid of the man.

He could hear the heavy trodden footsteps of the police and, like before this had all happened (before being lost in time, before Hurt had found a way to get Joker shot in the head, before Dick had taken up the mantle and taken Damian as Robin) he found himself taking the Joker by the scruff of these strange black clothes Bruce had never seen him in before that didn't quite suit him but made him look almost like an actual human being, and turned to the gate just as the (ungodly) torch lights found them and the police were shouting.

"Batman? The Commissioner sent us to pick up the Joker."

A new and old cop, small and shivering when the clown looked their way. Perfect.

"That's alright, gentlemen. He seems to be in a mood this evening. I'll take him to Arkham myself, if it's all the same to you."

"Are y-you," the younger cop, in rookie blue, stuttered a little, gulping back spit as the clown unleashed a wide smile at him, very pointedly, "S-Sure, sir?"

Batman nodded, still clutching the Clown's clothes, but also grabbing his wrist just to be absolutely sure that he wouldn't take off as he coaxed him towards the Batmobile; neither bothered to pick up the hat that had fallen off of Joker's head when Batman had sucker punched him, "Absolutely."

Both of the cops backed off and went back to their car, the older one reminding Batman (needlessly) to call Gordon when the clown was dropped off and then they left just as Bruce cuffed both of Joker's hands and deposited him into the long black vehicle.

As Batman revved up the Batmobile in the driver's seat (oh, and he had very much missed the feel and scent of the machine) Joker allowed that same, light smile to grace his malevolent façade.

"I missed you too, Batsy."


End file.
